U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that seeks to overhaul the way the U.S. manages homelessness.
The order signed Thursday, July 24, calls for changes to make it easier for states and cities to remove outdoor encampments and get people into mental health or addiction treatment. That includes involuntary civil commitment for those “who are a risk to themselves or others.”
“Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe,” the order states.
The White House action also seeks to shift federal funding away from longtime policies that sought to get homeless people into housing first, and then offer treatment. Instead, it calls for prioritizing money for programs that require sobriety and treatment, and for cities that enforce homeless camping bans.
It also directs the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation to assess federal grant programs and prioritize places that actively crack down on illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting “to the maximum extent permitted by law.”
Critics said the sweeping action does nothing to solve homelessness, and could make it worse.
“This executive order is forcing people to choose between compassionate data driven approaches like housing, or treating it like a crime to have a mental illness or be homeless,” said Jesse Rabinowitz with the National Homelessness Law Center
“Institutionalizing people with mental illness, including those experiencing homelessness, is not a dignified, safe, or evidence-based way to serve people’s needs,” Ann Oliva with the National Alliance to End Homelessness said in a statement.
Trump’s order also calls on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to defund addiction programs that include “harm reduction.” This is certain to disrupt frontline health care programs that work to reduce overdoses from fentanyl and other street drugs.
Thursday’s White House action builds on a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year that said cities can punish people for sleeping outside even if they have nowhere else to go. Since the high court ruling, well over 100 cities across more than two dozen states have passed or strengthened bans on homeless camping.